Posted by Alan J. Flavell on 02/06/06 18:45

On Mon, 6 Feb 2006, Andy Dingley wrote:

> > If you wanted HTML without omitted tags, you could have had it with
> > SGML all along. If you wanted to eliminate SHORTTAGS, you can do so
> > in SGML.
>
> I don't understand why HTML didn't do that (it's before my time, and
> you know I'm no SGML geek).

There's an attempt at an explanation in the thread which contains mid=
Pine.LNX.4.53.0403271353030.2967@ppepc56.ph.gla.ac.uk

> <rhetorical>Was HTML ever intended to
> actually support SHORTTAG and use it?

*Some* of the features of SHORTTAG certainly did get used: omission of
quotes from certain attribute values, and omission of attribute names,
for a start. Otherwise you would always have had to write
SELECTED="SELECTED", instead of just SELECTED, and so forth.

At the time, it was inevitable that turning on this SGML option
also dragged along with it some other features, unwanted in SGML.

Due to the "Web TC", these features can now be turned on separately,
although I'd have to RTFM to find the precise details.

> > How else would you interpret this, then?
> > http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/conform.html#h-4.1
> >
> > || An HTML document is an SGML document that meets the
> > || constraints of this specification.
>
> The fact that {an SGML document that meets the constraints of the
> HTML spec} is also a HTML document

But that isn't what it says (hint: it's a conformance definition of
HTML); so your conclusion is flawed.

But that definition of an HTML document is itself flawed, since some
of the "constraints" of the HTML spec forbid things which SGML does
not allow to be forbidden. So we're back again at an exercise in
sophistry.

cheers

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